[kirillbobyrev]

That makes a lot of sense, but I feel like Steam's "Early Access" is exactly for that. I can't speak for everyone but I often buy games there just to support the developers and don't expect it to be a success (maybe it turns out to be good, maybe it doesn't; either way, it's too early for a "full experience").

Maybe it changed lately, but plenty of astonishing games came out of "Early Access" while being rather unimpressive (though promising) at first.

[langsoul-com]

Early access these days really isn't a good place to test a game. It's like a quasi full release.

Any game that's not fully legit would have bad reviews follow them until after a full release and revamp

[addingnumbers]

I blame Steam for shifting the market's expectations about early access.

In the years before Steam got in on early access, I bought a few early access games, and the attitude was "Keep at it! Hopefully this will pan out," not "Now you owe me a finished game."

For example, I blew $50 on a starter ship in Star Citizen in 2015, when I already felt it was extremely likely Roberts would burn out before his vision could be realized. I saw the purchase as a charitable contribution toward people putting effort toward a niche I wanted to support.

If the project collapsed, there were dozens or hundreds of developers who had spent years honing their skill at crafting a MMO space sim. If they have to move on to the next thing, certainly many of them are going to take on similar projects with a narrower, more deliverable scope.

Also I felt it was useful to signal to the industry that there was unmet demand for this sort of intricate space simulation.

When Steam got into EA, expectations shifted from charitable encouragement to placing a pre-order and getting a partially playable demo to tide you over.